Club director confirms they are trying to get Stoke City player to ‘leave’ – ‘Would be a shame’ if they couldn’t

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Giannelli Imbula’s loan away from Stoke City isn’t quite going to plan.

After several attempts to relaunch his career after being pushed to one side at the bet365 Stadium, the midfielder was hoping to find some game time at Lecce in Serie A, but that hasn’t been the case.

He’s only made four appearances in all competitions for the Italian side, and is basically a persona non grata once again.

On Tuesday, we covered an article from TuttoMercatoWeb claiming the player’s contract with Lecce could be rescinded, as many offers had been made for his services.

That would mean clubs in the MLS or China, whose transfer windows are still open, or are about to be, are interested, with all this now being confirmed by the Italian club’s director of sport, Mauro Meluso.

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He said, relayed by Calcio Lecce: “He’s out of the squad. There are open markets and we’ll see if there’s the possibility to make him leave. At this moment, he’s not part of the team at Fabio Liverani’s disposal. We are looking at any situation, but we have to understand from a bureaucratic point of view if it’s possible for him to do a double contract termination, with us and with Stoke City.

“Of course, it would be a shame if it were not possible to let him go, because I have never received as many offers from all over the world as I have for Imbula”.

You might wonder why Lecce would be receiving offers for a player they don’t own, but it is likely to be because they have an option to buy him, albeit one linked to specific conditions that includes him making at least 25 appearances of 45 minutes or more.

Since that’s unlikely, it will be up to Stoke City to decide what to do with him, but, at this point, our bet is they don’t really care as long as they can finally get him off their wage bill and move on.